Started cranking Monster Hunter again.
Finally finished Iceborne. Monster hunter's gameplay always blows me away.

Holy fuck is there a lot of content in Cyberpunk 2077. I remember when the game came out people complained of it being as wide as an ocean and as deep as a puddle but those people can fuck right outta here. It’s chock full of interesting stories to learn about and tons of fun gameplay. Same goes for Phantom Liberty which takes countless hours to get through.

I get that cost does not directly correlate to play time when it comes to video games, but it’s hard for me not to gawk at how this game was sold for the same price point of the yearly reskin of .

No, the irony of how CyberPUNK was almost ruined by corporate interference is not lost on me, but it’s clear that the developers, artists, writers, programmers, and designers behind this game are true masters of the craft.

This year, I’m most looking forward to playing through it again after I’ve taken a good couple months off.

I‘m having a blast alternating between Tunic and Sleeping Dogs to get an unusual, but not unpleasant mix of action, adventure, and puzzles. I’ll probably pick up Cyberpunk after finishing the latter, as it seems to set the mood for it (at least in terms of the city vibes and the protagonist’s story somewhat).

As for 2024 games, I’m trying to steer clear of any announcements. In general, I don’t enjoy the “hype season” phase; for me that time is better spent doing something else - carpe diem and all that. Path of Exile 2 is the only game I can name for this year and that’s because I used to have a borderline unhealthy amount of hours in POE1. Time well spent.

My fiance and I just finished the DLC for The Case of the Golden Idol, and not only is that game awesome, but the story hooks for the DLC were a pleasant surprise. We can't wait for the sequel.

I've been playing a lot of Pillars of Eternity, and I made it to Act 2. It's impressive how insanely good this game is. And then on top of that, it's impressive that I think everything I like about it is done better in Baldur's Gate 3.

I finally made it to Master rank in Street Fighter 6! Still some input frustrations until the game can get a season 2 patch, but I'm just happy to finally have something like an Elo rather than the superficial league system, even though my master rating settled slightly below the default 1500 value.

EDIT: Missed the bonus question. Of the games I'm confident are coming out in 2024, I'd say Avowed, which is why I'm playing Pillars of Eternity now.

Happy new year.

I've been playing Remnant 2 which I'm really enjoying. Fairly similar to the first one, the moment to moment gunplay and exploration just clicks for me.

Also done a few rounds of Take and Hold in Hotdogs horseshoes and hand grenades which is still my favourite VR game. The new Institution level is kicking my butt though, haven't worked out the best spots yet.

I'm really looking forward to Hades 2 this year. I especially enjoyed the die to get more story mechanics from the first one.

Diablo 4 the whole week.

I'm near the end of the main story, and started the final act. It's kinda whatever, it has some good moments, but the first half was a bit boring. After you get your mount, the world is much more fun to get around. It's just massive and there's so much shit to do, it's pretty ridiculous. Lots is repeated of course, just like every open world game, but I still have a good time.

Gear progression is pretty lame right now, since I need to finish the main story to access the higher difficulties, and gear doesn't drop above a certain level. So I've not really gotten any real upgrades in like 30 hours.

What's really terrible though is the network performance. Running around solo in the world is fine for the most part, but some of the event areas, where you're fighting alongside other players, it can be terrible. Constant lags, stutter, and rubber banding. I really need to check if it's a problem on my end, maybe my pi-hole is blocking some domains or something.

I'm still slowly working my way through Rogue Trader. It's a lot of fun, but something about it makes me feel satisfied with a session after around an hour in. It's slowing down my progress, but probably the only thing not leading to me burning out and never actually finishing the game.

I am getting an itch to play a gag, so I might pause RT, but I'm also afraid I won't end up coming back to it if I do.

Happy new year

Currently playing Coral Island (stardew valley but on an island)

Persona 3: another remake. Is probably my most anticipated game and it's coming out in February

I splurged on the Steam winter sale and bought a set of smaller games.
Right now I'm busy playing I Was a Teenage Exocolonist which has been more fun than expected. I really like the story and the multiple paths and endings. The card games are meh, but once you find a good modifier they become very easy.

At the same time I'm also playing Shadows over Loathing which is very very funny in short sessions.

I'm trying out some FOSS games.

Mindustry. I expected Mindustry to be a Factorio clone, but it's uniquely fast-paced and messy. I find it difficult to tell the buildings apart, though, so I may have to hunt down a graphics mod.

Beyond All Reason. I really enjoyed Planetary Annihilation, so this seems like a natural pick. I've barely sunk my teeth into it, but I'm impressed so far.

I've given another chance to Lords of the Fallen as I've realised I might have held it to the absurdly high standard of the masterpiece that is Lies of P and it's a fun game, I've just reached the last dungeon.

It has a ton of problems: the jump is terrible, the lock on mechanic is the worst I've ever seen, camera is bad, the only challenge the designers seem to know is to gank the player with 50 enemies all the time, quests can be failed by beating a boss too early, selling an item(no buy back) or opening doors, bosses are kind meh and so on BUT it somehow is still fun and good, it's like it's more than the sum of its parts. 8/10 and I actually would recommend it.

I played “The Expanse” (on Linux PC) and I enjoyed it so much that I didn’t put the controller down for over 6 hours (https://beko.famkos.net/x/1CMPu)

Started a modded Minecraft server with friends. Center mod is the absolutely rad Create mod ecosystem focused on steam-punk-esque factory automation. I will let the mod trailer speak for itself: https://piped.video/watch?v=rR8W-f9YhYA

If anyone has questions about self-hosting MC in a docker environment, ask away.

I've just finished replaying the base FF7 Remake, in preparation of FF7 Rebirth. Also I haven't touched INTERmission yet.

Some of the games that I'm excited to play in 2024: FF7 Rebirth, Metaphor ReFantazio, Eiyuuden Chronicles, and maybe Dragon's Dogma 2.

ff7 rebirth (i've resisted all spoilers!)

and dawntrail (NEED. PICTOMANCER. NOW)

Diablo 4: Season 2 - Got all the items for Midwinter Blight, so now I'm back to working on season objectives. I only have 2 more to complete in order to get all the rewards. Right now my focus is on upgrading 5 glyphs to level 21. So far I've completed 3.

Diablo 3 - Logged in to do the Darkening of Tristram anniversary event for fun and realized I was missing a reward for a challenge I have never got around to completing, so I'm currently working on killing all the unique monsters for the event for the classic demon portrait. I'm only missing two and it seems like those bastards are just refusing to spawn.

Alan Wake 2 - I still haven't finished this, and it's mostly because I keep getting sidetracked with exploring and trying to find every little thing. But I am loving every second of the story, I don't even know how to describe it. I've been having so many emotions seeing characters from the first game being what they are now. I'm also starting to run into some visual bugs that are weird, but nothing game breaking. I feel like I'm toward the end of the game, so I've been backtracking a lot to find things that I may have missed. I'm kind of hoping I get it done this week, because I would love to get to the Dead Space remake.

As for what I'm looking forward to in 2024, I'm really hoping Outlast Trials gets out of Early Access. I love the Outlast series, but don't really like jumping into games when they haven't been 'officially' released.
I think Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is supposed to come out this year (hopefully), but I don't think I've seen an official release date yet.

I've only played Civilization V since New Year, but I'm thinking of giving Old World another try sometime. On the surface it's something I should really like, but it hasn't really grabbed me.

Nothing I've seen on the 2024 slate has me really excited yet, but I'm somewhat interested to see how Manor Lords and Life by You turn out.

Duck Game

Vecter

Mostly Against the Storm and Granblue Fantasy: Versus Rising! I'm actually really enjoying GBVSR and as someone that has struggled getting into fighting games in the past despite really enjoying them and wanting to get better at them, this one has got me hooked so far.

As for anticipated games, the latest Momodora game comes out very soon. There's also Granblue Fantasy: Relink which looks interesting, and the latest FFXIV expansion, Dawntrail, this summer!

I installed Gemcraft (the newest one) again after completing it ages ago. Having a blast 🙂 Sucks that FPS is limited to 30 though. I have since bought a 144hz monitor

I've found myself playing Armored Core VI with the expanded weapons and balancing update. Burned through my first playthrough, now working on NG+ for more parts. I've spent hours designing color schemes for my mechs, and then immediately pounding others into the sand with it. Glorious. Anticipated? The Horizon Forbidden West PC Port, I am going to take 2 days off work when that drops.